Means to an End
by Calico0128
Summary: The Rundown . On the way to retrieve the Gato, Travis thinks about his place in life. Drabble.


This is the second fic that I wrote while watching The Rundown last night. I like this one better than 'Rules,' I think cause it's a little more personal, and of course cause it's not as sloppy. Guh. Anyway, hope you enjoy! (And start writing too!! Or encourage your friends!!! There just isn't a big fandom for this... it's so perplexing!!!).

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This wasn't how he'd pictured his moment of glory, floating down the river at the front of a crappy boat, a gun pointed at his back, and Big Boy glaring at him. Leading two people to his Gato. So, one could take it from him and the other could fulfill his end of the bargain and then haul him back to his father.

There was a time when Travis might have found this situation remarkable or even noteworthy. He might have found it screwed up and wrong and unfair, but he'd already come to accept it. Sure he'd argue and needle and bitch about it, but he'd already resigned himself to this… his life. And the fact that he was no more than a means to an end. An object to be used however the situation demanded. He'd gotten used to the idea over the years. Why would he expect now to be any different?

When he was 7 years old, he'd been used as ransom, and in the same stroke, was shown just how little his father actually cared for him. A rival of his father's had gotten word that Billy had a son. He was kidnapped walking to the bus stop in grade school. He'd been kept, locked up in a room for almost two weeks before he was dropped back off at his mother's trailer. Travis had never asked, but he was nearly certain that Billy had refused to pay the ransom. He sometimes wondered what might have happened to him, had those men been less kind, but the thought scared him and he usually pushed it away.

He'd been an employee at 12 years old. Billy had yanked him to L.A. for the summer. Dear old dad had learned early on that he could play poker with the best of them and set him to work gambling against full grown men who thought it was cute that a kid could play, and who tolerated losing 10, 20 grand a round, at least the first couple of times. It wasn't long before a drunken man realized he'd lost $100,000 to some punk preteen. He accused Billy and Travis of cheating together and lunged to cut off Travis's fingers. Billy ordered his thugs to intervene, but Travis knew it was only because the man had insulted Billy Walker's integrity.

By 16, Travis was smart enough to know his father didn't give a rats ass about him. He knew that to Billy he was simply a free set of hands, of ears and of eyes, and better yet, a name, a legacy- a blank slate to be written on, a lump of clay to be shaped however he wished. So when Billy's thugs came and yanked him off the sidewalk as he walked to high school, he knew only to expect the worst. And he was right. It seemed Billy planned to use him as a spy. He'd intentionally messed up one of his fellow drug dealer's shipments, costing money and men. Billy apologized and offered up his own son to make up for it.

Travis spent eight months in a compound with a kingpin, murderers and drug dealers, and rapists, and thieves. Prison without guards. Without order. He spent eight months working like a dog, doing whatever was needed, and running drugs and bearing witness to murder, all for a man who thought it was hilarious that Billy Walker had sold his son. He lived in a constant state of terror; afraid to sleep, his stomach too knotted up to eat. When the mob boss didn't like his work, he'd beat him with a cane or whipped him with a fat strip of leather that was decorated with metal studs. Not to forget the beatings he received on occasion, courtesy of the goons. Beatings brought on simply for being their rival's son. There were many nights that he thought he'd never feel like a real human being again. He called his 'father' almost daily, offering up any information he discovered, begging to be taken back home, freed. But it was a full eight months before Billy decided he had enough information to effectively destroy his rival.

So, really it was no surprise to find himself here, though it didn't make him feel much better. After taking off from Stanford, after coming to South America, he thought he'd escaped it, the curse of being 'a means to an end,' a tool to be used and tossed aside once its purpose has been fulfilled. Perhaps it was written somewhere, maybe a sign somewhere that he couldn't quite see that said, "Use as Desired."

Mariana's goal was straightforward enough. Have Travis lead her to the Gato, _his _Gato, and then steal it and sell it to help buy back the town from Hatcher and free her people. Beck needed him to fulfill contract. He would trade Travis's know-how and his Gato, so Beck could take him back to L.A. Back to Billy, to pay off whatever debt, uphold whatever bargain Beck and his father had made.

But damn! He was angry. Very angry. Enraged. Angrier than when he'd been holed up in that hell of a compound for eight months! He'd been _this _close! _This_ close to actually doing something, something for no one, for nothing but himself. And now, when he finally found the Gato, it wouldn't be his anymore, because now somebody was putting a gun to his head and telling him to find it. The moments of pride and euphoria were gone, replaced by quiet acceptance and burning anger. Anger not even due to the fact that it was being taken from him, but because he'd thought- _actually believed _he'd ever get to do anything for him, just for him. What a fool he'd been to expect anything else. It was his role in life, to be used, to be a means to an end.

So he bowed his head, hated himself for forgetting his lot in life, and wondered what Billy needed him for now.

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Hope you liked it!! Please review!!


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